The 2012 championship runs from 11 November - 2 December, with each round consisting of 2-game matches (4 in the final) between the players drawn against one another. Tied matches are decided by rapid and blitz tie-break deciders.

These upsets are unepected but, as a spectator, I like this format. To say this is not the way to determine a World Champion is not accurate as all participants are under the same conditions. To me it's just another way to get a World Champion. Sure if the classical system of 1 game per day with longer time controls were used we'd probably see a different champion. But really, this is fair and much more interesting than the Anand-Gelfand match.

Lots of other top-rated women players have been eliminated too -- over 50% of those rated above 2500.

I'm therefore wondering if the new world champion, whoever that is, will have legitimacy after all. Sure, this is a fair tournament, but winning one tournament doesn't make one a great player who'll be worthy in the eyes of many of such a high stature... Think about Khalifman or Ponomariov -- do people think of them as World Champions these days. They did win it, fairly, about a decade ago... But nothing much was there to show before or after in their careers (particularly for Khalifman), so it fades quickly.

Not many of the remaining players have won major tournaments or shown consistently high results at the international stage. Stefanova has (though not lately, unless we count her Rapid WCC title earlier this year), and the Kosintseva sisters have been around the top for a while... Zhao Xue has won a tournament occasionally, and is the top-rated remaining player... The rest are pure wildcards at this point, but obviously have no worse chances.

Natalia Pogonina's consistently strong play so far gives her excellent chances. Let's wish her success; it's a great opportunity for her, and she has a great mindset to approach it.

An interesting observation in comparison to men's World Chess Championships (albeit the format is rather different) is the number of blunders that happen. Gelfand and Anand rarely blundered in their 12 classical games, so a lot of those were drawn. Women at their highest level in this knock-out tournament (still, they are rated ~250 points below Gelfand and Anand) blunder a lot, so we see a lot of games where one player held an advantage and should have won or at least drawn, but then turned around and lost.

Examples only in this latest round abound: Zhao Xue, Victoria Cmilyte, Koneru Humpy, Yifan Hou, Pia Cramling. And only the latter was in a time trouble situation; the rest had all the time in the world to see better.

Notable exceptions so far have been Natalia Pogonina's play, as well as Tatiana Kosintseva and Antoaneta Stefanova.

From my observations, the people who were over-focused on the championship were eliminated. A WWCC is an important event, but being obsessed with it is not helpful in any way. And yes, thanks for the congrats.

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